Star musician leading down to earth life

Max Sullivan msullivan@seacoastonline.com @MaxSullivanLive

Sunday

Apr 9, 2017 at 2:00 AM

NORTH HAMPTON — Mark Eddinger has programmed synthesizer sounds for Michael Jackson, Elton John and Herbie Hancock, signed Ray Charles to a record deal and gone waterskiing with Bon Scott. He watched Madonna sing before she ever had a hit, and dined at his mother’s house with David Bowie, a family friend.

With a life so rich with musical experiences, the 58-year-old keyboardist and industry expert now lives quietly with his family in North Hampton, still working in the music industry, whether playing music, working with new artists or consulting with major labels like Sony Music. Today, he looks back on a career for which he is grateful.

“I feel I’ve really been lucky to meet and to know some of the great performers and entertainers in the industry,” said Eddinger, whose extensive collection of awards and mementos includes a framed platinum record of Michael Jackson’s “Bad.” Similar pieces hang all over his walls. He has also produced synthesizer sounds for artists like Elton John, Celine Dion, Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Bryan Ferry, and Oasis.

Eddinger began playing piano at age 5 and grew up in northern California in the 1970s, when famed concert promoter Bill Graham was at his height and San Francisco had a thriving musical community. Eddinger’s talent was noticed by Graham and others on the scene, creating opportunities for him to meet some of the biggest artists of the day, often backstage at concerts like Graham’s annual Day on the Green.

Eddinger developed an early fascination with synthesizers, which led him to England in 1975 to meet renowned producer Brian Eno. Eddinger spent time with Eno and learned the importance of each synth sound being different. It was a philosophy he took with him throughout his career.

Eddinger was involved with the development and early use of the Live End-Dead End acoustic recording technology at Las Vegas Recording Studio in 1980. He worked with artists including Luther Vandross, Randy Crawford, Doc Severinsen and many others with the new technology. His work there attracted attention to his expertise in the studio, and it opened the door to work at the highest levels of music.

Eddinger said he developed friendships with some of music’s big stars throughout his career. He catches up with Robert Plant by phone about once a year, and he just emailed Ted Nugent this week about a hunting opportunity up north in New Hampshire. Eddinger has never hunted with Nugent himself, but his friends have.

Eddinger met Bowie shortly after “Let’s Dance” was released in 1983. Despite being at the height of his success, Bowie was down to earth, he said. He loved Eddinger’s mother’s kosher dill pickles, which led to the dinner at his mother’s house.

“He was a genuine person. When you looked at him, you knew he was paying attention to everything you said,” Eddinger recalled. “He didn’t have that ego that people were just a face in the crowd.”

Eddinger said his time around music stars exposed him to dark sides of the entertainment business. He developed a bond with the late AC/DC frontman Bon Scott.

Eddinger went to AC/DC’s shows, traveled with Scott to New York and even took the singer to go waterskiing in Lake Berryessa in California.

“He’d never done it before. He just fell down. He was drunk,” said Eddinger, laughing.

While Scott was wild and charismatic onstage, Eddinger said he was an introvert offstage. Eddinger said he was aware Scott drank heavily, which led to his early death.

Eddinger recalled asking Scott what he was thinking about and often being surprised by the answer – family, his past.

“He carried around a lot of things in his head," Eddinger said. "I don’t believe that people really asked him to talk about those things or really think about them much. He drank a lot, and that was to drown things that kind of haunted him.”

As time passed, Eddinger remained engaged in cutting-edge music. He shaped the sound of Butthole Surfers single “Pepper,” a number 1 hit on the Billboard alternative rock chart in 1996.

Eddinger recalled how Butthole Surfers lead singer Gibby Haynes hated the song when he first heard it. The band had yet to break into the mainstream, and he thought this was too much of a departure from the Butthole Surfers’ alternative sound.

“He used some expletives to describe the song when he was in his hating mode,” Eddinger said. “I wasn’t surprised. I knew that he loved the (underground) direction of the band. The song was, in his mind, a sellout.”

When Eddinger saw Haynes again at a show in New York City after the song’s release, Haynes apologized and thanked him for the help. “Pepper” was climbing the charts and getting the band attention. Fans had also embraced the song, he told Eddinger.

While Eddinger blossomed in the studio, he simultaneously earned a reputation as savvy when it came to business and music licensing. He co-founded Worldwide Entertainment in 1980 and went on to create and direct regional promotional campaigns for artists like Aretha Franklin, Fleetwood Mac, Toto, Van Halen, Grateful Dead, Journey and Heart. Worldwide Entertainment was purchased by Warner-Elektra-Atlantic a year later, and Eddinger was then retained by WEA as a consultant.

One of Eddinger’s most famous friends entered his life in 2000 when he signed Ray Charles to a record deal when he was president of InVision Records. He met Charles through industry friends and set up a meeting at his Los Angeles office. He went on to spend a tremendous amount of time with Charles, and became friends.

Charles was as sharp at 70 as he was when he was in his prime, Eddinger said, both as a musician and as a business man. When Eddinger met with Charles to negotiate the record deal, the soul legend had two attorneys on each side, one of whom was Peter Funsten, one of the most renowned Beverly Hills entertainment lawyers. The aged singer made it clear he was in charge.

“The lawyer made a statement he didn’t agree with. He turned around, told him to be quiet. He said he was going to take it from here. The lawyers looked at him like this was obviously what happened quite a bit,” Eddinger said. “It answered a lot of questions as far as why he was able to negotiate with Atlantic Records (decades ago) and own his masters (recordings) when artists before that had never really done that.”

Charles recorded material for a record with InVision, but the album was ultimately never released, as InVision was closed by its parent company a year after Charles was signed. Eddinger said he is not bitter about the record never being released, as he understood business decisions in the music industry are often out of the control of those they affect. He was also grateful to have had the chance to know Charles.

Eddinger’s late wife, Lena, also knew Charles. Eddinger remembers Charles would grab his wife’s hands and caress her arm with the other.

“He would do that the whole time he was with her,” Eddinger said. “In the movie, someone asked him why he did that. He said, ‘That’s how he could tell if a woman was attractive.”

“Explains why he’d been doing that for a year every time,” he added.

Eddinger said he pushed Charles to record duets with other artists, which the singer then did on the posthumously-released album Genius Loves Company. Eddinger had the idea for InVision, and Charles was initially opposed, saying similar releases by other artists had never done well.

“I said, well, there are all sorts of people out there that really want to work with you,’” Eddinger recalled telling Charles. “He said ‘What would we sing’ and I said, ‘You would sing songs that you like. You do things you like.’”

Eddinger has lived in North Hampton since 1996 when he moved here to become a partner in an oil company with his longtime friend, John Forma. He said Forma convinced him to join by saying oil wells are a lot like musicians – only one in 10 might be a true success.

Eddinger recently entered a new phase in his life with his second wife, Kacey, whom he married three years ago. They live with her three children – Malik, 17, Kadic, 10, and Landin, 6, as well as their son, 2-year-old Oliver, and their dog Emmett. Approaching 60, he said he has enjoyed his life slowing down some so he can finally experience children.

Eddinger is currently working with the Manchester-based company Retrieve to develop a new phone app called Capptivate, designed to improve artists’ and celebrites' ability to access fans through new technology. He said he is also currently focused on finding and developing new talent, which he said is gratifying.

“I give people a lot of my time when I can just feel that I could help them make a good decision or move forward, accomplish something that’s on their way to their eventual goal,” Eddinger said. “I like to do that because of just the satisfaction of knowing I can impart my knowledge to someone who has a strong passionate desire to succeed in the music business, no matter what they want to improve.”

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